Hope & Truth Ministry
Be hope, be love, live with truth.
For the wondering, the doubting, the hurting, and the hopeful. For people without a congregation, and for people who have found theirs but want another voice on the road. You are welcome here.
From the lectionary
Recent reflections
Sermons and reflections in keeping with the Revised Common Lectionary. New writing arrives most weeks.
August 1, 2026
Blessing Our Meal - Matthew 14 - Proper 13A
Celebrating the Eucharist, this sermon takes the feeding of the many thousand (Matthew 14:13-21) alongside Jacob's wrestling in Genesis 32:22-31 and Psalm 145, finding in Jesus's compassion a pattern for every table. Tony notes that Jesus does not ask whether there is enough but asks the disciples to bring what they have — a few loaves and fish that when blessed and broken, become abundance — the Holy Eucharist and of the community meals served by UBFM every week. Against the loneliness of judgment, scarcity, and hoarding, the Eucharist joins compassion, welcome, giving thanks, faith, and breaking bread together, whether the table is family or chosen family.
July 24, 2026
Heaven is Doing - Matthew 13 - Proper 12A
Given the week of RAGBRAI, this sermon reads the parables of Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 — the mustard seed, the yeast, the hidden treasure, the pearl, and the dragnet — alongside Romans 8:26-39 and Psalm 119:129-136, using the community of a week-long bike ride as a picture of the kingdom. Tony resists the impulse to use the net as a tool for sorting the saved from the lost, insisting instead that the net pulls up everyone: all are selected, all are called to God's purpose, and heaven is less a place in the clouds than an active, caring, collecting way of life — heaven is doing. With Paul's assurance that "if God is for us, who is against us," the call is to leave judgment to God, use our gifts for one another, and belong to a community that includes the great and the small, the queer, the questioning, and the addict finding their way.
July 10, 2026
Parables - Matthew 13 - Proper 10A
Taking up Jesus's Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23) alongside Romans 8:1-11 and Psalm 65, this sermon resists the temptation to sort people into the saved and the lost, hearing instead an honest description of the many ways we receive God's Word. Tony names the soils that choke growth — the lure of wealth and status, the impatience of a consumer culture primed to "have it our way," and the avoidance of the discomfort that is itself a necessary teacher — against the corporate lie that we can have it all without struggle. The good news is that God offers a field of opportunity and a life of purpose apart from those fleeting comforts: you are a seed planted and tended by the Creator, already loved and given everything you need.